The First Step
by Geek Squared 1307
Summary: The X-Men students return to Bayville High School after the School Board's decision to allow mutants to attend public schools. They are nervous because of the anti-mutant discrimination and bullying that they know they'll face. This story was inspired by X-Men: Evolution Season 3, Episode 3 "Mainstream" and takes place right after it.


Dedicated to anyone who's ever dreaded walking into school due to bullying or discrimination

**Summary/Author's Note**: The X-Men students return to Bayville High School after the School Board's decision to allow mutants to attend public schools. They are nervous because of the anti-mutant discrimination and bullying that they know they'll face. This story was inspired by _X-Men: Evolution_ Season 3, Episode 3 "Mainstream" and takes place right after it.

**Disclaimer**: This is a fan fiction story. I do not own the _X-Men_ and am not making any money from writing this. I am not in any way affiliated with the State University of New York or the Pulitzer Prize and do not mean to imply anything by mentioning the prize in this story.

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"You have been chosen to take the first step into this new world. To lead the way, to be a beacon of hope for mutants yet to come. This is not only a big responsibility, it is an honor. I'm always astonished by the wondrous things that can be built on the ashes of tragedy. For even in the face of bigotry and discrimination, the X-Men will endure." (Professor Charles Xavier, _X-Men: Evolution_, Season 3, Episode 3 "Mainstream")[1]

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The First Step

By Geek Squared 1307

The hour was late, but Kitty Pryde was still awake. She'd come to the kitchen telling herself that maybe a midnight stack would calm her down a bit, maybe she'd have one of the left-over brownies. She knew the real reason she was awake was because she was nervous about returning to school again in the morning, after the rather disastrous events that had occurred a few days prior.

They were all still living in the subterranean levels while the Xavier Institute was being rebuilt; the kitchen was right outside her bedroom door. After finding the pan of brownies, she sat down at the little kitchen table to have her snack.

Even though the School Board had voted to allow mutants back in public schools, she still knew, as they all did, that there were still many people who didn't like them, not least of whom was Duncan Matthews, one of the upperclassmen who'd gone from being a bit of a school bully to being an out-and-out bigot. Even the professor, who had tried to encourage them with his speech, had to know that the road ahead would be difficult, but he was the professor, and his outlook always seemed to be that things will get better, if only they tried. Still, she'd meant what she'd said on Friday morning, that she was afraid to go back, and that was still true today. They stood out, people knew they were different, and to be singled out in that way was a terrible feeling. Part of her wished she could disappear.

Kitty had to admit to herself that beneath her fear was anger, something she didn't like, but which she knew made sense all the same. The Institute was her new home, her chance at a better life, and going to Bayville High School had been like being normal. It was easier to feel normal when she knew that there were other mutant students there as well; it was like being in a special secret club, instead of being the only one who was different. It had been a wonderful feeling to have that for a little while, and now she felt as though that little bubble of happiness had been shattered. She'd known it would have to happen sometime, but she'd always tried to live as though it wouldn't.

And then there was school. She was afraid to go to school. She never thought it would come to this. She'd always been a good student, and even when others had made fun of her in the past, she'd just braved though it. Kitty knew her mother would tell her to just be brave, stand tall, and not let any of them bother you. Kitty's mother had built a career for herself in engineering despite being one of the few female students and facing discrimination due to her gender and religion.

Kitty heard footsteps, and a moment later, Ororo was in the kitchen.

"I thought someone might be up to night," said Ororo, sitting down across from Kitty. "Trouble sleeping?"

Kitty nodded vaguely.

"I know it's difficult, Kitty," said Ororo.

"How long do you think it'll take for things to get better?" asked Kitty. "Will things get better at all?"

"I try to have hope," said Ororo, "but sometimes, hope needs to be held onto and dragged forward. Humanity needs someone to remind us that we can be better than this. And sometimes that responsibility is on our shoulders."

Kitty looked down at the table. "Maybe you and Logan and Mr. McCoy and Professor X can handle that responsibility. I don't know if I'm strong enough or brave enough to do that."

"I don't know if we're strong enough, either," said Ororo, "but we'll all get through this together. I promise." She reached out and placed a hand on Kitty's shoulder. The girl looked up and smiled.

"Thanks, Ororo," said Kitty.

"Any time," said Ororo.

#

Scott Summers grabbed his backpack and car keys and paused to take a deep breath before leaving the bedroom her was sharing with Kurt. The events of Friday, three days prior, were running through his head: the provisional return to Bayville High School for one day, the stares and insults as they'd walked into the school, the fight with Duncan Matthews, the School Board meeting, the _fight_ during the School Board meeting. For some reason, amidst all of it, the thing that stood out was a short exchange he'd had with Logan. The morning after, as they'd forced themselves to go to a meeting with Professor Xavier to hear the decision of the School Board, Logan had noticed the despondent looks on their faces and asked, "There a funeral I don't know about?" Scott had answered, "You could say that. We dug our own graves last night."

And yet, surprisingly, they hadn't. The professor had told them that the School Board had voted to allow them back. Scott wasn't sure how he felt about it. He'd always wanted for everyone to know about mutants, so they wouldn't have to hide, but there was a long way to go from humanity finding out about their existence and actual acceptance of mutants in society. It had been difficult enough on Friday to walk into school not knowing whether they'd ever be allowed to come back again, but it was another thing entirely to be expected to make that long walk every single day.

He wasn't sure if he'd be able to do it. Fighting Magneto (again) would be easier.

Now that he was sharing a room with Kurt, he'd noticed that Kurt prayed every night before bed. Scott had asked him what he prayed for.

Kurt had hesitated before saying, "Family. Forgiveness. Strength. Good things."

"Does it help?" Scott had asked.

"Well, the first one worked."

Scott thought about that conversation now, as he walked into the kitchen.

Breakfast was a somber affair, with none of the usual noise and talkativeness. The adults attempted to cheer them up. Even Logan was trying to help, though his advice verged on the hilarious, because he'd never back off from a fight as he was advising them to do. Still, it was amusing enough to distract them for a while, as was Jamie's attempt to create a fortress out of cups which came crashing down and rolling all over the floor. Fortunately, they weren't made of glass (a precaution on the part of the professor, because he knew the risks of running a school full of kids).

Finally, the time came to head off to school, and after some hugs from the teachers, the students entered the elevator to ascend to the ground floor. As they trudged across the grounds of the Institute to Scott's car, they tried to look resolute, but Scott knew they looked very much like kids who were afraid of the bully at school.

#

Rogue was used to receiving stares from her fellow classmates, and she'd never been very popular, but it was one thing to be a loner and another thing entirely to be so severely hated. The walk from Scott's car to the front doors of the school wasn't quite as long as it had seemed on Friday, but there were still the stares and suspicious looks. Some of the other students at Bayville High seemed afraid of them, as though they hadn't all been going to school together before. Even Jean and Scott, two of the professor's first students, received suspicious glances, though they'd been here for years.

As they walked into the school and headed in different directions, Rogue noticed Amara looked rather determined, with her shoulders thrown back and looking determinedly in front of her, as if daring anyone to get in her way. It was exactly the attitude and demeanor that Rogue was trying to have. She glanced over at Amara and smiled. Amara smiled back, and the two of them strode down the hallway trying to look more confident than they felt.

When Amara split away from Rogue at the next corner, to head down a different hallway towards her class, she turned back for a moment and said, "Rogue, I don't know if I can do this. I can't walk into class." Rogue remembered that the younger students hadn't returned to school with them on Friday. The professor had felt it would be better for the older kids, who had been attending Bayville High for a longer time, to go in first.

"It'll be okay," said Rogue. "Besides, you can totally take them if they start anything. I mean, _don't_ start a fight or anything, like the professor says, but you know, _in case_."

Amara smiled and laughed.

"I'll walk you over," said Rogue, putting an arm around Amara's shoulders. She felt odd being the older student trying to comfort a younger friend when she herself didn't feel all too certain.

They walked down the hallway to Amara's geometry class.

"Meet me for lunch, okay?" said Rogue. "I usually try to sit near the back corner."

"Okay. Thanks, Rogue," said Amara.

"No problem."

Rogue watched as Amara walked into the classroom, like a concerned parent making sure that their kid was inside before driving away. Only, in this case, she wasn't sure she was leaving her friend in a very safe location. The other students were staring, but Amara was trying to ignore them, and it seemed, at least, that she had one friend who was talking pleasantly with her.

After Amara had taken her seat, and was laughing at something her friend had said, Rogue hurried down the hallway in the other direction to her own class. It was English, and they were in the middle of an independent reading assignment. This was convenient. Rogue could hide behind the large paperback of Michelle Cedar's _Mutant Times_. Cedar wasn't writing about real mutants; hers was a science fiction novel that had won the Pulitzer Prize a few years prior. Jean had recommended the book to Rogue, and the selection seemed appropriate for this class at this time in their lives.

Rogue found herself wishing, as she often had, that she had different powers than the one she did, like the ones that the characters in the book did. It was like when she read superhero comic and felt like a regular person; she could pretend she was not a mutant, but a regular person reading a story about characters with superpowers, wishing she had their abilities rather than her own.

But this wasn't a story; it was real life, and in real life, sometimes the awesome powers came with a cost.

At least she had friends who understood.

#

"Poor kids," said Logan. He and Hank McCoy were having coffee shortly after the students left for school.

"I wish there was something we could do," said Hank. After a pause, he continued, "Their generation will be in the history books. Unfortunately, doing something that gets you into the history books is often a very painful process."

Logan snorted. "I guess that's one way to put it." He took a sip of coffee.

"I can't imagine how I'd've reacted if everyone had known I was a mutant when I was a teenager," said Hank. "I hated myself." It was bad enough, he thought, to have to deal with the whole world knowing about mutants as an adult, after decades of struggling to accept himself and coming to a tentative conclusion that maybe life was worth living despite it all. It might have been even more difficult if he'd had to do so with added harassment and bullying. Then again, maybe he would have had a chance to live at a place like the Xavier Institute and accepted himself at a younger age.

"They'll be alright, Hank," said Logan. "They're strong kids."

#

It occurred to Kitty that school bullies seemed to have an inordinate amount of time on their hands, despite the very short intervals between class periods. She didn't have much time to think about this, however, as three upperclassmen knocked the books out of her hands and pushed her to the ground in the school courtyard. She landed hard, face down, and felt the skin scrape from her hands and knees.

"Hey, get away from her!"

Kitty recognized the voice as belonging to Rogue. There was a sound of a person hitting concrete a second later.

Kitty looked up in time to see Kurt walk up to the fight as well, and she smiled. Kurt had decided, apparently, to stand with his friends.

"Are you okay, Kitty?" said a voice from behind her.

Kitty looked over her shoulder and saw Amanda, Kurt's girlfriend, standing there. Amanda helped Kitty to her feet and helped her gather up her books and papers, while Rogue and Kurt dealt with the bullies, sending them running away to the other end of the courtyard.

"Come on," said Rogue, after the fight was over. "I was just about to meet Amara for lunch. We can tell her we beat up Duncan Matthews and his crew."

#

"I was thinking," said Ororo, who was leaning against the kitchen counter and stirring mug of hot chocolate, "we should give the kids a nice surprise. They can't be having a very good day." She had been thinking over her conversation with Kitty last night, and she knew that there was a good chance the kids were going to be despondent when they came home.

Professor Xavier and Logan were seated by the kitchen table, while Hank was experimenting with the coffee maker, trying to find the right combination of different flavors that would create a delicious result.

"A tough training session oughta let 'em get their anger out," suggested Logan.

"I'd rather they not destroy the only remaining part of the Institute, Logan," said Professor Xavier, with a smile.

The other three laughed.

"I was thinking something more like a nice dinner, a party," said Ororo.

"I make a great chocolate cake," said Hank, while trying to mix together hazelnut, orange, and vanilla flavored coffee in the right proportions, with skill only a chemist could manage.

"And _then_ we can let them blow up the Danger Room with their anger," appended Ororo.

#

The lunch room was crowded, as usual, but the X-Men students found a table in the corner. The table was rarely full, near as it was to the location where the teacher monitors sat at their little desk, overlooking the lunch room to make sure no problems occurred and usually grading papers. Today's monitor was Mrs. Grady, an elderly woman who taught art class and wore a paintbrush in her hair to hold her bun in place.

Amara noticed that Mrs. Grady was looking over at them sadly, but not unkindly, when they sat down. The six older students were there: Scott, Jean, Rogue, Evan, Kurt, and Kitty. Bobby was there, too; he'd come over sporting a rather cheerful attitude. The only non-X-Man at the table was Amanda, who seemed rather nonchalant about hanging out with mutants.

Rogue was relating the story of the fight she, Kurt, and Kitty had earlier in the day with Duncan Matthews's gang. Amara could almost hear Scott and Jean's admonishments before the older students spoke them, but surprisingly, neither of them said anything. To Amara, it seemed they didn't have the heart.

In truth, Amara was heartened by the story; it wasn't right to feel that way, perhaps, but they did have to defend themselves sometimes. Hearing the stories of the older students made her feel at least a little bit better.

She looked across the table at Bobby, who hadn't even started eating yet, which was unusual. Bobby loved lunch, especially desert. He looked up at Amara and gave a small smile, both of them sharing that moment of desperate camaraderie.

"Look at the bright side," said Bobby.

"What's that?" said Amara.

"I haven't figured that part out yet."

#

After lunch, the students went their separate ways again, streaming out of the lunch room in droves after the bell rang.

As Jean was heading to her advanced placement biology class, she was carrying with her a form she'd received in the mail a few days ago. It was from the State University of New York, which she'd be attending in the fall. They wanted a recommendation from a science teacher for her application to the advanced medical program. Jean felt a little nervous. She and the other X-Men had kept their heads down since their secret had been revealed to the world; she didn't know how her teachers would react, whether her time at the school would outweigh any suspicion.

Throughout the class, Jean was uncharacteristically quiet, not raising her hand even when she knew the answer to a question or thought of a question to ask.

At the end of the class period, Jean waited until the other students had left before approaching Mr. Carter, forms in hand. She tried to look confident as she did so. She tried to look as confident as she'd usually be, if not for the fact that the entire world now knew that she was a mutant.

Mr. Carter looked up from his his desk at her, smiling surprisingly. Jean sensed a generally friendly disposition from him and felt a little relieved.

"Jean," he said. "How are you? I hear of all the business about your — er — genetic difference. I do hope you and the other students are all right."

She almost laughed. Mr. Carter loved civil rights' history and had a penchant for trying to use the proper terms for groups of people. It was a tendency that some of the students found funny, but Jean had always found it sweet. Today, she found herself incredibly grateful for it in a personal way.

"I'm applying to university and I need some recommendation letters. I was wondering if — if you might be willing to write me one."

"Of course," said Mr. Carter. "Although, I have to admit, I — um —"

He looked nervous and Jean's heart fell.

"I mean, I'm afraid that a recommendation from me might not be the best for you, Jean. My word may not count for very much, given who I am," he said. He seemed to be trying to imply something.

Jean looked at him, wondering if she should use her powers to read his mind. She found that she couldn't sense anything from him, though.

"I'm, well, I'm _like you_, Jean," said Mr. Carter. "After all that's happened, with what people think of people like us, a recommendation from me might hurt, rather than help."

Jean didn't know what to say at first. There had been another mutant among the staff of their school all this time and they hadn't known.

"Our professor can help you, Mr. Carter."

"I appreciate the thought, Jean, but there are personal reasons why I can't join a known mutant group."

She nodded. She wondered if his family knew.

"I will still write you a recommendation," he said. "You can decide whether to use it or not, whatever's best for you."

"Thanks, Mr. Carter," said Jean, handing over the recommendation form from the university and making a mental note to speak with the professor.

#

The little kitchen was filled with the wonderful smell of baked lasagne, simmering soup, and frosted chocolate cake. The four teachers sat around the kitchen table, lost in their own thoughts.

Logan didn't remember his childhood, but he liked to imagine that they could at least give their students a better childhood than the one they'd been given by fate, being born as mutants. He thought of when Professor Xavier had first started this school; back then, Logan's attitude had been that the kids should toughen up. He still thought this, but seeing how they had faced up to all the challenges they'd been set and been rather brave about it, he knew they were more than capable of defending themselves. He wished they didn't have to, but that was life. At the very least, he'd make sure they had the chance to make their own lives, make sure they weren't used as he had been.

Hank McCoy had hated being a mutant for almost his whole life, and yet here he was, trying to cheer up these students who were trying to accept being mutants. Perhaps he should take some of his own advice he thought, but it was always easier to try to teach positive messages to kids that you care about than it is to believe those positive messages yourself. Still, surrounded by his friends, he couldn't help but hope that things might turn out okay.

Ororo had always had a complicated relationship with her powers. She'd been a thief and a goddess in her life, had used her powers to hurt and to help. She held the power of the nature itself, a great and devastating power, but she had disciplined herself to have a great amount of self-control to avoid accidentally harming others with her abilities. She understood what her students felt, about being different and wanting to be like everyone else, in more ways than one. She was confident in herself, but whew knew the price she'd had to pay to gain that confidence — the difficulties she'd gone through. She wished there was a way to gain that knowledge, that experience, that ability without going through what she'd suffered.

Professor Xavier had started the school at first with the intention of teaching his students to control their powers and use their abilities to do good in the world. But he had found over the years that the role he wanted them to play was taxing, was a greater responsibility than anyone should have to bear. And yet, he could not give up the ideal of the X-Men: the idea that the world could become a better place for mutants. But it came with a price. His students would have to survive more than school bullies to achieve that goal. He knew they were up to the task, but part of him regretted asking them to make that sacrifice, regretting asking them to be the ones taking the steps into an uncertain future that would likely leave them scarred for life.

#

Scott's last class of the day was calculus, and he spent most of it bent over his notebook studiously taking notes on the teacher's lecture. Though always a dedicated student, today Scott was even more focused on the material, reluctant as he was to look anyone in the eyes. He didn't want to see their stares, their disapproval, their suspicion. He didn't want to feel that, even after all these years here, they still didn't trust him enough.

It had been difficult enough to grow up as an orphan from the age of eight, but being a mutant had added even more desperation in his life. In these last few years, he'd finally felt as though things had been getting better. He had a home and family (a weird family, but still a family) and hope for a future. Now, it had all been shattered like fallen glass.

Still, he had to be brave, he told himself. After all, what else was there to do? He was an X-Man, they were all X-Men, and they would survive this.

Rogue saw Scott at his locker at the end of the school day and headed over. As she got closer, she heard him talking to himself.

Rogue hesitated a moment before saying, "Hey, Scott."

He started. "Huh? Oh, hi Rogue. How was your day?"

"Not that great, to be honest," said Rogue. "What d'you expect?"

"Yeah, well," Scott slammed his locker shut, "I guess start counting down the days, right?"

"I'll make a calendar."

The drive home was quite, after which the students trudged across the grounds of the Xavier Institute and crowded into the elevator car and descended slowly into the subterranean levels of their half-rebuilt.

The elevator doors opened and the smell of a delicious dinner greeted the group of students as they entered the subterranean levels of the Xavier Institute. They walked to the kitchen to be greeted by their four teachers, smiling at them.

Here, at least, they were among friends.

###

References

[1] "Mainstream". _X-Men: Evolution_. Season 3, Episode 3. First aired 28 September 2002.

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**Author's Note**: Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed it. Constructive criticism is welcome. I aim to improve my writing.


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